


Bloodthirsty

by Brumeier



Series: Alternate Earths 'verse [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: ushobwri, Doppelganger, M/M, Suspicions, Team, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8321539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Rodney and his team are adrift in the Multiverse with no way to get home, and the situation isn't made any better when they have to deal with vampires, a badass doppelganger with a tragic story, and Rodney's own doubts about John.





	

“He’s just like Blade,” Ford whispered.

Rodney wasn’t amused. It was weird enough being face to face with another alternate version of himself, but this one was a little terrifying. He had a thick scar across his neck, tattoos up and down his arms, and a raspy voice (no doubt related to the scar). Oh, yeah, and fangs.

“Mr. Crow?” Analise asked hesitantly.

“It’s just Crow,” the man rasped in reply. 

“A one-word name, like Drake,” Rodney said. “Very classy.”

“Crows are harbingers of death. And so am I.”

What a cheery thought. Rodney paced around the room in the fleabag motel that Crow had dragged them to after saving them from a close encounter with a vampire, grimacing in disgust at the water stains and ratty carpet and musty smell.

They were so screwed. The ERB device had been deliberately altered: the coordinates for Earth Prime had been scrubbed and it wouldn’t even accept them when entered manually. Rodney didn’t know why that weasel-faced SGC tech had done it, but the team was cut off from home. Maybe permanently.

And now they had to deal with vampires. Fucking awesome.

“You said you were half vampire,” Analise said. She was perched on the end of the bed, watching as Crow sharpened one of the small wooden stakes that fitted into the pistol crossbow he had laid out on the desk. “Were you born that way?”

At least she was asking sensible questions. John and Ford were just staring, although Rodney had to admit his doppelganger was hard to look away from. Like a leather-clad car wreck.

“No-one’s born that way,” Crow replied, looking at Analise like she was an idiot. “I was a professor, once upon a time.”

“Physics?” Rodney asked, pausing in his circuit of the room. That would certainly explain his easy acceptance of their alternate reality story.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

“What changed?” Analise asked.

“My sister. Jeannie.”

Even to Rodney, who wasn’t always so good at reading people, the pain in Crow’s voice when he said his sister’s name was almost palpable. 

“A nest of vamps took her. Turned her. And she tried to turn me.”

“That sucks,” Ford said sympathetically. 

John seemed to shake himself out of his stupor. “What happened?”

“She didn’t do it right,” Crow replied dryly. Rodney didn’t care for the way his alternate self was looking at John. “She always was impulsive. Too emotional.”

“What happened to her?” Ford asked.

“She wouldn’t have wanted to live that way,” was all Crow said. 

Rodney exchanged a look with Analise. It was easy enough to read between the lines: Crow had to kill his own sister. He’d like to scrub the coordinates for AE-15 out of the device.

“I’m so sorry,” Analise said.

Crow shrugged like it didn’t matter, but Rodney knew that it did. Knew how he’d feel if his whole life got up-ended and he couldn’t do the work he was meant to do. Hunting vampires didn’t sound like a very satisfying occupation and, judging by the state of the motel Crow was living in, it didn’t pay very well either. But having to kill someone he loved, someone who’d become a monster? Rodney couldn’t even begin to imagine what that did to a person.

“So you hunt vampires,” John said. “For revenge?”

“Don’t you dare judge me!” Crow snapped. He slapped the wooden stake on the table. “You don’t know what it’s like, having that constant threat out there. And most of the world has no idea vampires even exist. They can snatch a person off the street, out of their car, away from their families, and if you’re lucky you never see them again because if you do, all you’re looking at is a monster.”

John held up his hands in supplication. “I wasn’t judging you.”

“I’m going to find that bastard Kaleb and I’m going to take his fucking head for what he did to my sister, and to me.”

Crow stomped angrily into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Rodney turned on John, scowling.

“Way to poke at the angry vampire slayer, John! Are you trying to get us killed?”

“I was just asking a question!” John protested.

“Were you?” Because as much as Rodney didn’t want to admit it, he had a tiny seed of doubt. John wasn’t from their reality. He claimed not to know how that had happened, but what if he did? Rodney had strong feelings for John, and he didn’t want to think John was anything but the honest man he’d always seemed to be. How could he be trusted?

“You know what? Fuck you,” John snapped. 

Rodney cursed his expressive face. “John –”

John slammed out the front door, and Rodney flinched at the sound of it.

“Do you really think he’s hiding something from us?” Analise asked. “If they hadn’t tested him, would you still think that way?”

“The point is they did test him,” Rodney said. He dropped down on the bed closest to the door. “What if he’s here to sabotage the mission?”

“No offence, Doc, but he could’ve done that right from the first trip through the wormhole.” Ford stared at the door as if he could will John to walk back through it. “But he’s been right there with us, helping us, saving our lives. Maybe he really doesn’t know.”

“I think Aiden is right,” Analise said. “And you should think about this, Dr. McKay. We’re going to need his help to get back to Earth Prime.”

What they were saying made sense, Rodney could see it, but he still wasn’t convinced. He’d given people the benefit of the doubt in the past, and it always bit him in the ass. Why should this time be any different?

Something thumped against the door, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

“Being a little dramatic, aren’t you?”

He got up off the bed and yanked the door open. John was standing there, eyes wide and face an alarming shade of red, clawing at the vampire’s hand wrapped around his throat. The creature was using John as a shield, standing behind him and lifting him up on his toes.

In that moment every other thought went out of Rodney’s head, except _Save John_.

“I’ve come for Crow,” the vampire said through a mouth filled with an alarming amount of sharp teeth. He looked perfectly ordinary, otherwise: jeans, grey t-shirt, hair that was just a little too long. His hand on John’s throat looked like a vise.

“Let him go,” Rodney said. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he wondered if the vampire could hear it.

He could feel movement in the room behind him, and something was pressed into his hand. One of Crow’s little stakes. Rodney curled his fist around it, and wondered where the hell his vampire-killing doppelganger had gotten off to.

“No. I’m keeping this one. He’s delicious.”

It was only then that Rodney saw the blood trickling out from under the vampire’s hand. John’s blood. He looked at John, icy fingers of fear running up and down his spine. How were vampires made? Was a bite all it took? John stared back at him, unable to offer any answers. His lips were turning blue.

And then everything seemed to happen at once. There was the sound of breaking glass as Ford threw a chair through the window and followed it out, doing a pretty impressive tuck and roll that Rodney only caught in his peripheral vision. The vampire lifted John clean off his feet, and then it started to spasm like it was having a seizure. Ford rammed the creature from the side, taking it down and revealing Crow standing behind it with the pistol crossbow and a bottle of holy water.

Rodney grabbed for John, both of them falling in the opposite direction Ford was taking the vampire. They crashed to the ground and Rodney did his best to cushion the blow for John, who was frantically pulling air into his lungs.

Analise came running out of the room, one of Crow’s full-sized stakes in her hands; she jammed it into the vampire’s chest with a loud battle cry and immediately jumped back out of the way. The vampire writhed, making inhuman sounds of suffering, before it succumbed to its injuries. Rodney didn’t get a very good look, but the vampire seemed to wither and turn to a pile of dust.

“John? John! Are you okay?”

John did not look okay. He was curled up, his head on Rodney’s thigh and the bloody gash on his neck soaking into Rodney’s jeans. He looked pale now that his blood flow wasn’t being restricted, and he was wheezing.

“Jesus,” Ford said. “Did he get bit?”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Crow said dismissively. “He has to feed to be turned. We need to go.”

Analise didn’t even question him, just ran back inside the motel room to gather up their things. She was back in a flash, Rodney’s messenger bag over her shoulder. She was waving the ERB device around.

“Dr. McKay! Something’s wrong!”

“Now what?” Rodney grumbled. He kept one hand on John and snatched hold of the device with the other. “Shit.”

Analise was right. They had a five hour standard exploration time built in for every AE they visited. They’d only been on AE-15 for about an hour, but already the countdown had started. Another wormhole was going to open up and if they didn’t take it they might be stuck on the vampire world indefinitely.

“Help me get John up!” Rodney said. Ford and Analise helped lift him, and John swayed on his feet but managed to stay upright. 

“I’m fine,” John wheezed.

“Less than a minute!” Rodney felt certain he’d be cursing that duplicitous tech for years to come. He only hoped he’d get a chance to try and fix the device on the next AE they landed on.

“Come with us,” Analise said to Crow. “You don’t have to stay here.”

Crow shook his head. “I have to finish what I started. For Jeannie.”

“Good luck,” Rodney said, and found that he meant it.

“You too.” Crow nodded before he slipped back into the shadows, not sticking around to see the show.

The wormhole opened up, flooding the parking lot of the motel with rippling blue light.

“You first!” Rodney told Ford. “Clear an area and get the first aid kit ready. John needs stitches.”

“You got it, Doc.”

Ford and Analise stepped through together. 

“How screwed are we?” John asked, one arm draped over Rodney’s shoulders.

“Pretty damn screwed,” Rodney replied.

They stepped into the wormhole, an uncertain future awaiting them.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Written for [Monster Fest at You Should Be Writing](http://ushobwri.livejournal.com/127766.html), for Vampire Day.


End file.
